


Rest Assured

by nagi_schwarz



Series: The Oppenheimer Effect [34]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: AU, Crossover, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-07-11 02:49:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7024267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: "author's choice, author's choice, I am not throwing away my shot."</p><p>In which Tyler thinks the fist-fight with Damien has blown everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rest Assured

Evan was the first into the kitchen after school. Tyler was sitting at the kitchen table, doing his homework under Rodney’s watchful eye, while Rodney worked on his laptop.  
  
“How was your day?” Evan asked.  
  
Rodney grunted something rude under his breath in French. Evan peeked over his shoulder. Rodney was emailing Zelenka. There were a lot words in ALL CAPS in the message.  
  
“What about you, Tyler?”  
  
Tyler peered at him from beneath his fluffy bangs. “You probably heard about the fight, huh?”  
  
“Even if I hadn’t heard about it, I’d know just by looking at your face.”  
  
Tyler sighed. “I was just trying to -”  
  
“Hold on,” Evan said. “Wait till everyone gets home. We’ll talk about it after dinner.”  
  
Tyler bit his lip, but he said nothing, just nodded and continued his homework.  
  
Evan changed into jeans and a t-shirt. He reveled in being barefoot, hated wearing shoes, had hated wearing his BDUs and combat boots for days on end on alien planets, but he did what he had to for the job. Now, at home, he could wear pretty much whatever he wanted, and if he didn’t have to wear shoes, he wouldn’t. He went back to the kitchen and checked the menu posted on the fridge (everyone in the house got to pick what was for dinner one night each week, and they’d usually order in pizza on Saturday night), then set to cooking.  
  
John came home next - he’d been supervising afternoon detention. Cam had been at a meeting with Fiona, Cassandra, and Connors. JD was the last to arrive, grumbling about a pop quiz his professor had set in class.  
  
“Now I get why your students despise you some days,” he said to Evan, unslinging his backpack and dropping it beside the coffee table.  
  
Evan leaned over and kissed him. “You aced it and you know it.”  
  
“That’s not the point.” JD sat down at the table with Tyler. “Let me see your face, kid.”  
  
Tyler tilted his head up and pushed his hair back obediently, though he avoided JD’s gaze.  
  
“Yeah, that’s gonna hurt for a few days. Make sure to ice it a little. And don’t leave the ice on the whole time - twenty on, twenty off. A swollen nose looks bad enough. A frostbitten and then amputated nose makes you look like Lord What’s-his-face. From the Harry Potter books.” At home, JD was lazier about generational pop culture references.  
  
Evan had never appreciated how much work JD did, maintaining the facade of adolescence, till he heard JD talking to Elliot, the history teacher, about JFK, and never once call him Jack Kennedy like he did in casual conversation.  
  
“Lord Voldemort,” Tyler said patiently.  
  
John coaxed Rodney away from the kitchen table and into closing his laptop. The two of them sat side by side on the couch, talking in low voices. Cam came into the kitchen wearing sweats and an old USAF t-shirt. Oppie was riding across his shoulders.  
  
“Someone found out,” he said in a low voice to Evan. “About JD.”  
  
“Not about all three of us, I don’t think.” Evan continued slicing potatoes neatly.  
  
“What makes you say that?” JD asked.  
  
“More than one student - mostly girls - came up to me and told me how sorry they were, like someone had died.” Evan sighed. “They think you’re cheating on me, Cam. With JD.”  
  
Cam shook his head. “How? Tyler would never tell anyone. We’re discreet as hell. The one time we’ve ever kissed JD in public was that time at the park when we told Tyler. And even then, JD kissed both of us. If anyone had seen, they’d have to know -”  
  
“Maybe they think Evan’s some kind of wilting flower who puts up with your infidelity because he loves you too much to ask you to change,” JD suggested.  
  
Evan shot him a look. “Not helping.”  
  
“You teach art. You have soulful blue eyes and dimples and you bake delicious treats. Clearly you’re the wife in the relationship.”  
  
Evan sighed. As much as JD looked like a teenager and had been friends with Daniel Jackson for the better part of a decade, he still had some terribly old-fashioned notions about...everything.  
  
“I don’t mean literally,” JD said. “But that’s what the kids think. That does explain the way they all looked at me, too. With pity. Like I’m some kind of victim. I’m a legal adult, thanks.”  
  
“How did Cam end up as the villain in the relationship?” Evan shook his head. “Cam’s everyone’s favorite.”

“It’s his cute southern drawl,” JD said.  
  
Cam greeted Tyler, tone carefully neutral, asked about how his homework was going, turned over the homework he’d picked up from the classes Tyler had missed. Then he headed into the den and transferred himself onto the sofa and sat back, petting Oppie and saying nothing.  
  
Dinner was a fairly quiet affair, all of them checking in with each other - and with Rodney. It was John and Rodney’s turn to do the dishes, so Cam, JD, Evan, and Tyler went and sat in the den. JD curled up on Cam’s lap in a startling display of youthful flexibility, tucked his head under Cam’s chin and just lay with him.  
  
Tyler looked away, but he looked anxious instead of embarrassed. He had finally stopped looking embarrassed every time any of them were affectionate with each other in a romantic way. (Tyler didn’t handle the whole punching thing well, though, so they tended to just slap at each other more these days, and never lifted a hand to him.)  
  
When the dishes were done, John and Rodney came into the den and took up places on the two recliners on the other end of the sectional.  
  
“So,” Cam said, “Tyler got into a fight today at school. By the majority of witness reports, he threw the first punch. He was suspended from school for the rest of the day today and will spend three days in in-school detention.”  
  
“Who was he in a fight with?” John asked. “No one would tell me anything.”  
  
“Damien,” JD said grimly.  
  
“Tyler insists he was provoked,” Cam said. “But there are rules. No insult is worth a response of physical violence. I think the school punishment is appropriate, but there should be home consequences as well. I spoke to Fiona, said I’d consult with the rest of you so we are all on the same page. Thoughts?”  
  
“Grounded from video games and the computer for sure,” Rodney said.  
  
Cam nodded.  
  
“For a week. I think that’s fair,” John added.  
  
“You hearing this?” Evan asked quietly.  
  
“Yes, sir,” Tyler said.  
  
“Anything else?” Cam asked.  
  
“Some extra chores to keep him busy while he can’t play games,” JD said. “Also I think no skateboarding and no hanging out with friends.”  
  
“That’s fair,” John said. “How about...having him wash and detail all the cars?”  
  
“Sounds good,” Evan said.  
  
“Tyler,” Cam said, “do you understand what it is we’re asking you to do?”  
  
Tyler sighed. JD cleared his throat pointedly, and Tyler sat up straighter, met Cam’s gaze. “I’m grounded from video games, computer games, hanging out with friends, and boarding for a week. I need to wash and detail all the cars before my week of grounding is up.”  
  
“Very good.” John nodded. “Now, do you know why you’re being punished?”  
  
“Because I punched Damien, and I shouldn’t have.”  
  
“That’s right.” Evan caught Tyler’s gaze, held it. “Now, tell us why you punched him. Even if physical violence wasn’t justified, you’re entitled to your feelings, but you also need to learn to cope with them in a healthy fashion. Don’t think Alex won’t find out about this.”  
  
“He already knows,” Cam said.  
  
Tyler swallowed hard. “I told Damien you were going to adopt me,” he said. “And he got really mad. He - he said the only reason Cammie’s adopting me is because - because he likes teenage boys. Like JD.”  
  
“There’s more, isn’t there?” Cam prodded.  
  
Tyler lowered his gaze. “Damien - he really wants to be adopted too. He said it’d be cool, if someone like Cammie or John adopted him, but no one wants teenage boys, and there was no way the state would let a single guy adopt a teenage boy. I said I was going to ask Cammie to adopt me, because it couldn’t hurt to ask, and he said - he _said_ he didn’t care if I asked. But I guess he did.” He lifted his head. “I swear I didn’t tell anyone about JD, I swear!”  
  
“I think Damien was just flinging mud at the wall and hoping it’d stick,” JD said. “You freaking out and punching him probably didn’t help matters. If you’d just shaken it off, no one would have cared. But now everyone wonders if Damien wasn’t right, at least partially.”  
  
“I’m sorry,” Tyler said. His eyes filled with tears. “I didn’t mean to do the wrong thing. I just - I - I _love_ Cammie, and I know he’s not one of those monsters, and I -”

“Tyler,” Cam began.  
  
“Please don’t send me back.”  
  
Evan’s heart broke.  
  
“I know this is my last shot at having a real family, and I swear, I won’t throw it away. Just give me one more chance to do better, okay? Please?”  
  
“Aw, kid.” Cam sat up, and JD slid aside, let Cam transfer himself into his chair and wheel across the carpet. He tugged a sobbing Tyler into his arms. “Hey, we’re not going to give you back. One fist-fight does not a family break, okay? You made a mistake. You’re going to learn from it, which is why we issued a consequence. But we’re never going to give you back, no matter what you do.”  
  
Rodney’s eyes were wide in panic. For a man who made his peers cry on a regular basis, he was totally useless whenever a teenager started to cry in his presence.  
  
JD padded into the kitchen and fired up the stove, put a saucepan on one of the burners and poured in some milk.  
  
Cam held Tyler tightly, rocking him until his sobs subsided. JD returned a couple of minutes later with a steaming hot mug of milk with sugar.  
  
“Hey, kiddo, drink up,” he said. Tyler drew back from Cam reluctantly, scrubbed a hand across his face.  
  
“This’ll make you feel better, I promise,” JD said. “My mom used to make it for me when I was a kid. It’s an Irish Minnesota classic.”  
  
Tyler accepted the mug, sipped it. He raised his eyebrows, sniffled. “It’s really good.”  
  
“That’s the whole point.” JD clapped Tyler on the shoulder. “Here’s the deal. You serve your sentence. You never get into a fight over words again in your lifetime. And once your time is up, I’ll teach you a thing or two about how to throw a punch properly. If you throw the first punch, you should win every time. You’re not going to be a big guy - you’ll be lucky to be as tall as Evan.”  
  
“Hey,” Evan protested.  
  
“But you won’t be as broad. You need to look out for yourself,” JD said. “We can teach you how.”  
  
Tyler nodded. “Okay.”  
  
“Now, you’re grounded. Get to your room and finish your homework. We’re watching a movie.”  
  
Tyler nodded again and stood up. Evan reached out and caught his wrist, squeezed it gently. John gave him a hug, and Rodney said, “You can come out of your room if you have questions about your homework.”  
  
“Thanks,” Tyler said, and went to his room. Oppie followed him.  
  
Cam heaved a sigh. “What do we do? The kids at school know. Even if they don’t realize they know, they think.”  
  
“We should tell Fiona and Cassandra about us,” Evan said.  
  
“Yeah?” Cam raised his eyebrows.  
  
Rodney nodded. “Yes.”  
  
“What do you think?” John looked at JD.  
  
JD said, “Let’s do it.”  
  
Cam grabbed his phone and fired off a text message to Fiona. Time to come clean. Evan hoped they hadn’t screwed up Cam’s shot at making this adoption work. JD plopped down on Evan’s lap and kissed him, tasting like milk and sugar.


End file.
